The image and the doughnut
by stormus
Summary: Zack and Cloud discuss image and Sephiroth's temper over a pack of doughnuts and a word processing programme.


The image and the doughnut

Underscore. Space, Underscore. Space. Underscore. Space. Space. Underscore. Space. Plus sign. Underscore. Space. Underscore.

Cloud continued to tap at the keyboard, wondering just how many times he could press the underscore key before he went completely mad. Waiting around was the worst. He was bored. Why else would he bother typing lines of indecipherable nonsense on a random computer? Shrugging lightly to himself, he continued, hammering out a random set of letters. Boredom was a tough enemy to beat. He did intend to try however, expending a little effort to read the typing on screen.

Zack hung on the back of his chair, munching noisily on a doughnut. He cocked an eyebrow at the line of gobbledegook on the screen, but neglected to speak, stuffing the last of the doughnut into his mouth and unconsciously reaching for another one.

Curious, Cloud clicked on a random short cut.

"Bad idea." Zack spluttered through his doughnut, leaning over and jabbing 'escape', "You never know what you're gonna come up with if you go doing that."

Cloud stared back at him with those big blue eyes of his, unable to draw them away from the glob of pink icing on his friend's cheek.

"These computers crash at a moment's notice," Zack elaborated, "The thing is, one goes and the others all play copycat. Bad system karma."

"Why?"

"'Cos it's a crappy system, I dunno, why is the sea blue?" He grabbed the last doughnut, sweeping the packaging off into the waste paper basket and hopping up to sit on the desk.

Cloud went back to his random typing. "I wonder why..." he trailed off, leaving the computer to turn in his chair and look up at Zack, and the last remaining doughnut.

Zack stared back at him, brows drawing together slowly into a confused frown, "Huh? What? There something on my face?"

Cloud said nothing, shrugging as his friend picked the icing off his cheek and stared at it. Zack rolled it between his finger and thumb, and ate it. "Good 'nuff." He shook his head, well aware that Cloud still watched him, "What? What's the problem?"

"Nothing."

"There's always a problem when you do that. What? You wanted this doughnut, didn't you?"

Cloud shook his head. Zack let loose a violent sigh, hurling the sticky doughnut straight at Cloud's empty yellow spiky head. "I know you did. Why didn't ya speak up or something?"

"Because I don't want it."

"Take it." He refused Cloud the chance to argue, shoving him aside and staring hard at the screen, and the document his friend had inadvertently pulled up with his messing, "What's this? Reinvention of identity, the secrets of psychological disorders?"

Cloud frowned, unsure what was so funny as Zack laughed, spitting chewed up doughnut everywhere,

"Who needs that!" The SOLDIER First barked, "They trying to say that we're all psychos? HA! Maybe it's a sign, an omen!"

Cloud rested his chin in his hand to watch as Zack leapt to his feet, sending the objects on the desk flying every which way, "BEWARE! Working for the Shinra company will drive you crazy! Insane! Loopy! Round the bend! You never know Cloud, one second you're looking at trash on the company network, the next you're bouncing off the walls of a quiet room, chewing your nails or ripping your hair out at the roots."

Cloud's amusement was easy to see at the spirited demonstration. Zack hopped up onto the desk, and stood with his arms folded across his chest, staring down at his friend, "It could happen to you Cloud, just because you have SHIN-RA on your ID card."

"We better straighten out this mess. Sephiroth'll get annoyed if he gets any more complaints about us." He backed off at the raised-eyebrow scepticism cast his way by his best friend.

"Oh yeah, and how's he going to know it was us?"

Cloud stared at the ground, brushing a couple of stray blonde spikes from his face, "Because it's always us. Besides, when people complain about us, they call us the hedgehog brothers."

Zack laughed, "Oh yeah," and waved him off, "Don't worry about it, Sephiroth's got my back. I told you, we're war buddies. He looks out for me, I look out for him."

Cloud was not convinced. "He'll get mad. All he ever gets are complaints about us nowadays."

Zack shrugged, yawning and giving an exaggerated stretch. "Why do you care so much anyway? You worried that your hero's gonna be mad at you?"

"What?"

"C'mon Cloud, you get all fawny when he's around, you know that." He grinned, leaning on the chair once more and sticking his hand on his hip, "Why do you idolise him so much anyway?"

The blonde lowered his eyes. "Because I'm a nobody Zack. Nobodies need someone to look up to. If you're a nobody, you need someone to be like or you'll always be a nobody."

Zack wrinkled his nose, considering this answer carefully. "Nobody huh? So you're a nobody?" He started laughing, shocking Cloud out of his state,

"What's so funny?"

"You? A nobody? Ha! You're Cloud Strife! Pride of the Shinra army! What you talking about a nobody? Besides, the copy room girls think you're cute."

Cloud was clearly not amused. "That's because I got lost on my first day here and they never forgot about it." He shook his head, crawling out of his chair and scraping up the office supplies strewn across the floor. "I am a nobody, Zack. I didn't even make it into SOLDIER."

"That's nothing to be down about. A lot of kids don't make it into SOLDIER. You gotta keep your head held high and make the best of what you got, right?"

"No."

Zack huffed, stamping his foot on a financial file Cloud was just reaching for. "What are you doing?"

"What's wrong with cleaning up? You're the one that made the mess. You should be doing this."

"You are, as usual, missing the point. You have to understand that if you do all the menial stuff, you'll be stuck doing the menial stuff." He thought better of this suddenly, lifting his foot and falling back against the desk. "You can clean up if you like. I don't want to."

Cloud collapsed back into the office chair, putting up no resistance when Zack began spinning it round. "You have to make a stand, Cloud. It's part of the Cloud Strife package."

"Package?"

"Who you are." He hopped back onto his seat on the desk, pulling one leg up to hold it at the knee, "Who is Cloud Strife? That's the thing about being in SOLDIER. It's not how you fight, it's about you. The way you talk the way you act. All of it affects the way other people see you, and, ultimately, how you see yourself. Your image is important Cloud."

"You sure about that?"

Swiping his black, spiky wire-brush hair back, he took a breath and nodded, spying some fudge cookies, partially hidden in a desk drawer sitting ajar. "Of course. Look at general Sephiroth. General, equal to instant status. Ultra skill with a sword, equal to respect. Overall look, no girl can resist hair like that." Lightning hand movement was all it took for those cookies to find their way out of the drawer and into Zack's hand. "You got a girl, Cloud?"

Cloud remained quiet for several long minutes at this question. Eventually, he took a breath, "Maybe. Sort of."

Zack cocked an eyebrow, hurling a cookie at that dumb, empty head. "Maybe sort of? What kind of an answer is that?"

"Do you have a girl?" Cloud stared at the cookie in his hands, surprised at the amount of silence following such a simple question. He looked up to see that his best friend's smile had fallen away.

"Of course." Zack answered at length, forcing a smile, yet staring thoughtfully at the toes of his boots. "Did you really doubt it?"

Cloud continued, "Is she special?"

"All girls are special, Cloud." He chuckled, doodling a chocobo with a machine gun on an unimportant-looking envelope. "Don't you forget that." Glancing across at his friend suddenly, his eyes locked onto the un-nibbled cookie in Cloud's hands, "You gonna eat that?"

"I don't want it." A quick shrug, and it was never to be seen again.

"We should be finding our group soon." Zack announced, tossing the cookies back in the drawer and slamming it closed with his backside. Cloud agreed, standing and hesitantly reaching for his backpack and machine gun.

In a way, he was anxious to see his home town again. In another, he had to wonder if his friends and family would accept him for what he was. Nibelheim was waiting for him to return a SOLDIER, not a useless, motion sick member of the Infantry. Could he return there and hold his head high? Image was all important in SOLDIER, right? What was important for him? He was no SOLDIER...

"Hey!"

He looked round to see Zack standing there, Buster sword at his back, jogging on the spot, "You coming? Or are you going to stand there all day staring at your feet?"

Zack was confident. He was a SOLDIER. That was his image, that was who he was.

'So... who am I?'


End file.
